


Orbit: Alternate Scene

by Rouletta



Category: Borderlands, Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-25 05:48:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3799057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rouletta/pseuds/Rouletta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She laughs herself breathless over the stupid picture, and even when Rhys manages to pluck it from her fingertips, he can't really bring himself to regret it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orbit: Alternate Scene

**Author's Note:**

> When I originally wrote [Orbit](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3719068), I really wanted it to stand on its own as it was because I really dig emotional connections between characters. Still, I'd considered this as a part of the fic at one point and thought I'd add it on separately so that the reader could choose where to stop for themselves. The context for this is completely lost if you haven't taken a look at the original fic, as this picks up toward the end of it. I have at least one other part planned for this same verse, so stay tuned for that.
> 
> This fic is NSFW. If you shouldn't be reading it, turn away while you can.

She laughs herself breathless over the stupid picture, and even when Rhys manages to pluck it from her fingertips, he can't really bring himself to regret it. It's worth hearing that sound again.

And he becomes acutely aware of when it stops, when they fall in closer, when Fiona reaches for him the same way he does for her, pulled close and flush. Her shoes are left behind somehow, somewhere, on the floor, but her feet _aren't_ , barely skimming over his expensive boots.

Holding her is like breathing: effortless, natural.

But kissing her is the surge of electricity behind the clouds, the prickle of it on the air, the warm rush after the spring rain. It's being grounded by the graze of her teeth over his bottom lip, lured by the taste further away, snared by the fingers that thrum through his hair again and again.

It isn't difficult to lose both balance and reason.

The cold glass of the window behind Rhys, suddenly real and solid against his back, and Pandora framed beyond it are barely afterthoughts.

Fiona's weight follows, all of it, and it feels like home again.

Rhys kisses her breathless. Or does _she_ kiss _him_ breathless? He stops trying to figure it out.

"Yeah, well," he manages to rasp out. "Missed you, too."

"Picked up all that, huh?"

"I guess you could say I know how to read your lips."

Her eyes roll. He's missed that, too. But when they swing back around his way, they're journeying over the planes of his face, his touseled hair, the lipstick marks he'll have to wash off later. (He's started to regret that.)

Then she's kissing him again, and he's pushing off the wall to meet her. No, _lift_ her, and Fiona doesn't miss a beat, her legs catching around his waist. He doesn't aim for the desk, doesn't consciously seek it out, but it's where he ends up placing her for leverage.

There are too many buttons on too many shirts. Rhys' fingers feel clumsy, cold, on their own. Fiona does what she makes an art out of: outshining him in the subtle ways, her hands steady when they move to help him. He'd never know her pulse hammers in her veins the same his does if he hadn't felt it beneath his tongue.

When the front of his shirt peels back, the air around them feels a lot less warm than the spaces between them, but it's the brush of fingers, tracing the path of tattoos, that raise chills wherever they wander. Rhys leans into her touch on instinct, stifling the unbidden sound when her lips follow down the column of his throat and teeth nip against his collarbone.

He's sure the sound of him swallowing is the loudest thing in the world.

Fiona laughs, breath on skin, and flutters her mouth back up to his. Before he realizes it, he's fallen for it again: leaning in after her, attempting to slant his mouth to hers, and catch for only a moment before she weaves away, leaning back in at her own pace.

And he follows, further and further, until he's pressed her into the desk, lips finding hers, and finally--

\--brings his hand down to hit the intercom's button. His assistant's polite voice rattles through the speakers moments later. "May I help you, sir?"

Rhys' mind spirals out in a panic, and Fiona offers no help when he looks to her, too busy shaking off her amusement.

"Yeah-- No! No, everything's fine. Never mind. You, uh... do that assisting thing. At your own desk! Not that there's anything wrong with mine. It's just, y'know, I'm busy. With work. Only work. So, I'm gonna hang up now."

"Sir, are you sure everything's alright?" Great. He only manages to worry the woman. Or worse, give her fuel. The last thing he needs is everyone bursting down his door.

And that's when Fiona has mercy on him. "You're talking to a man who's weeping over the fine print of his contract. He'll be fine. Give him a moment."

With something rational to cling to, the assistant is almost a little too quick, a little too relieved, to go back to duties that don't involve her superior freaking out in her ear. When the commlink switches off, Rhys manages to look Fiona in the eye and let out a nervous laugh.

"Smooth," she observes wryly, wrapping her arms around his neck as casually as she pleases.

"No thanks to you." His glare is weak at best because even in the pit of embarrassment he's slowly carving out for himself, she's still the most amazing thing to breeze through here.

"More like every thanks to me. Did you hear her? She was about two seconds from beating down your door with a party of your closest friend."

Rhys doesn't want to admit she's right, so instead: "You're terrible. You know that? No wonder you made it past security. They didn't know to screen for... for..."

The rant loses steam somewhere in there, fades to that comfortable silence he never knows how to place. It's weird how she can twist something inside him with a look, a quirk of her mouth.

Rhys settles a little closer, instead, until he feels her back fit flush against the desk. "Where were we again?" He barely speaks above a whisper, but it sounds too loud, hopeful, in his own ears.

Her forehead touches his. "I think I remember."

His hands don't stumble over button after button anymore, untangling them from her vest and shirt until there's skin. It's more than something already mapped from memory; Fiona's sighs are a guide to that spot beneath her ear, the angle of her jaw, the thud of her pulse, the hollow beneath her collarbones, the center of her chest, salt on his tongue and warmth beneath his mouth and hands through his hair.

Rhys can count the number of times Fiona has ever been speechless.

He's willing to add a few more to the list.

Like the sweep of fingers, measured and gentle, up the curves of her leg, her thigh, beneath the hem of the skirt and pausing to trace unfathomable patterns. Like the encouragement of her leg wrapping higher, pulling them closer, and Rhys kind of can't help but move against her, only to find she's lost much of her senses in the same way, rising to meet him.

When Rhys lifts his mouth from hers, his voice is strained, hoarse. "I-- Uh. Maybe we should--"

"Having doubts, Hyperion?" How carefree, open, her smirk is. He'll remember that, always.

"Y'know what? None."

"That makes two of us."

Rhys doesn't consider himself the poetic type. Or even the romantic type. Or the _anything_ type. But he learns to appreciate what he has, when he has it.

What he has is everything he never thinks to look for until it's right in front of him.

Somehow, they manage to pull clothes apart and aside without losing buttons and ripping expensive accessories. They manage to dig through drawers and pockets for impatient moments until they find the contraceptives. They manage to find each other again, dark-eyed and breathless. Wordless. All fire in their veins, in every touch they trace.

The final push, sinking into the cradle of her thighs and their bodies join, and everything feels slightly bigger than they are. He's nowhere else, thinking of _nothing_ else, aside from chasing after the sighs echoing in his ears, rippling over his skin like waves, his hands beneath her, drawing her closer, as she does the same, heels at the base of his spine insistent and sharp.

Not sharper than the painted nails that bite into his back, purchasing closer, encouraging, with the building snaps of his hips.

Rhys can barely stand to look at her, flushed and make up askew, but looking away feels like too much of a loss.

So he kisses herself instead, raw and open, writhing to match the rhythm she counters. The dizzied part of his mind sparks and wanders, ignoring the clatter of the picture frame knocked over, the papers a distant flurry to the floor. He lifts her with a strength and steadiness he feels like he shouldn't possess anymore, from the desk only long enough to collapse in the chair feet away from it.

It rolls and creaks under the weight of them both, giving Rhys pause, and he's glad for it when Fiona's forehead bumps his, sharing breath and space, her fingers vining the length of torso, down his arms and back again, to take his face between her palms.

She rocks against him, and he sees stars, still tastes her breath. His hands flutter to steady her, steady himself; he can't tell anymore. He wants to touch, to hold, to keep. He wants to tell _her_ that, but the words are all tangled up in a knot, making it hard to swallow, hard to speak.

She kisses him, slow and sweet, lips pulling at his, like she knows anyway.

Rhys' arms bracing up Fiona's back, they find the rhythm together: pulls from her thighs, push from his arms. It's maddening, spinning out like honey: unhurried, unburdened.

He forgets where he is but not who with. Never that. Fiona reminds him with each pass of her body against his, each brush of her hair against his cheek.

It's a heady burn, ending how it begins: a wildfire, until she's shuddering in his arms and he's following her.

Her head bows, touches his shoulder; a shaking hand combs Fiona's mussed hair. The feather-light touch of her fingertips lazily wandering his arm is still enough to send shocks along his skin.

Rhys breathes her in again. It's then that she stirs, lifts her face to his with an uneven smirk. His expression softens, focuses; he smiles back.

"Youre, uh..." He wants to say beautiful. Amazing. That he's in love with her in a way that doesn't even make sense and consumes everything up in babbling and nerves. And he should say it, but his tongue feels leaden. "Something," he answers lamely.

Fiona chuckles beneath her breath, brushes her nose against his. "Not so bad yourself."

When she disentangles, Rhys knows it's because of the dull ache starting in tired muscles, but his chest still hollows. It's ending too soon, even as he turns to pick out and arrange what garments are his.

Fiona is put together a lot faster than he is. Her clothes in place and a little time with the compact mirror, and she's still the woman who walked in here and shook everything up.

On the other hand, Rhys sort of wrestles his own clothes back on. Especially the tie, looping itself in all kinds of knots he's sure don't actually have names yet. Maybe he'll start a trend.

Or maybe hands will brush aside his and help him make sense of it.

"Hey. Thanks."

"This is more for me than you. I didn't travel all this way to see you strangle yourself."

Rhys smirks despite himself. "Heart of gold, Fiona."

"That's what I hear." With the tie orderly, Fiona's hand smooths over it again. She's going to move away. She's going to walk out that door and take her shuttle and find her way back to Dionysus, and they'll see each other again... when? ECHO calls? Weekends?

So, he's blurting it out before he really thinks it through.

"Stay."

Rhys can see the exact moment Fiona is taken off kilter, the startled flash of _something_ widening her expression.

"Here? Yeah, the landlords won't be suspicious of that _at all_."

"Not _here_ here. Y'know, the residential wing. My apartment."

He can't tell what that look is for anymore, soft and neutral, but he feels exposed and uncertain. Maybe a little less awkward staring won't hurt. "Hear me out. You came all this way, and you technically _don't_ have to leave. Security gave you the thumbs up. I'm the hospitable representative giving you a place to crash while your shuttle's delayed."

Rhys catches the snort. "So, you're gonna lie. To everyone on the station. Where you _work_."

"Well, not everyone." Not Vaughn or Yvette, anyway.

"And when your bosses check my shuttle's itinerary for themselves?"

The cybernetic arm waves, the palm display flashing only long enough to demonstrate his point. It's one hacked file away.

"Unbelievable." But Fiona isn't turning down the offer.

"Stay for today. Tomorrow. However long you want." This time, Rhys ignores the vice that grasps for his every word. "But don't go. Not yet."

Fiona's fingers raise and smooth over the shorter hair at the back of her neck, playing over some intangible ache. Some worry mirrored in the furrow of her brow. "Why not?"

"Is that a 'yes'? Because it sounds like a 'yes.'"

"Fine, fine." The smile teasing at the corner of her mouth can no longer be hidden. "I'll stay for a while."

It feels a little more like home already.


End file.
